Tamasaburo 坂東玉三郎 「籠釣瓶花街酔醒」

Note: Please use http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4yLajfdTxQ&fmt=18 to access this video for proper aspect ratio.
This clip is from the beginning section of the play "Kagotsurube Sato no Eizame (籠釣瓶花街酔醒)". Tamasaburo played a top courtesan called Yatsuhashi (八ツ橋). His stage partner is Matsumoto Koshiro (松本幸四郎).
Quoted from Kabuki-za's website description, "the play shows a humble, pockmarked merchant from the country named Jirozaemon. He is wealthy, but because of the way he looks, has never thought that it would be possible to have a woman. He and his servant go sightseeing in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters and a chance look at top courtesan Yatsuhashi who smiles at him, makes Jirozaemon fall in love."

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• bando
• tamasaburo
• kabuki
• japanese
• dance
• 坂東玉三郎
• 歌舞伎
• 日本舞踊
• 籠釣瓶花街酔醒
• 八ツ橋
• Yatsuhashi
• Matsumoto
• Koshiro
• 松本幸四郎
• courtesan
• oiran

[jaedynramiro666]

Is anybody else amazed that that's a guy? :O

[kimmykid]

This is my favourite video on Youtube but for some reason it now shows squashed-up. It used to fill the screen and a lot of the subtlety is lost by not seeing it as it was. Please could you upload it again? Or am I doing something wrong to see it this way?

[silvicurlytop]

@KatsushikaMatsuyama oiran is a courtesan,oiran were not simple prostituts,they were artists, tayu is the one with the highest rank, which is her.

there are lower rank oirans, called sasha, yuujo and hashi but all oiran.

[NowhereWoman152]

1:05 XD 

[PrincessAki2009]

@WillyyyV Tayu is the highest class of courtesan in Kyoto and an Oiran is the highest class of courtesan in Edo (old Tokyo). Tayuu being the early term for the highest class of courtesan and Oiran being a later termThey are actually the same just that in different regions they are call different names. 

[msmcis]

Absolutely spectacular - Thank you so much, tiffenakou-san

[WillyyyV]

@KatsushikaMatsuyama, no that is an Oiran. U can tell by the obi & the hair.

[leananshae]

Those are either men in dresses or it is a convention of the ugliest women in Japan!

[SIPSOAP]

...magnifico!...

[KatsushikaMatsuyama]

not orian, tayuu

[WillyyyV]

@FireHidrentPro yea i know, lol. I once heard that they cost an average of $5,000! Does not really surprise me though...

[WillyyyV]

@ReaperRain, true but there are 3 full time working Oirans today! Of course they don't do sex anymore [which is a good thing, lol] but they fulfill all of the other roles that an Oiran did in the past.